Following Tel Aviv attack, Israel freezes Ramadan travel permits for Palestinians and seals West Bank village

Israeli soldiers stand guard at the entrance of Yatta near the West Bank city of Hebron June 9, 2016. The Israeli army entered the village in search for clues leading to an attack the previous night in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in which four people were killed and 16 others wounded. The two Palestinians assailants who carried out the attack came from Yatta, according to Israeli authorities. Israel said it had suspended entry permits for 83,000 Palestinians during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan following the shooting attack. (Photo: Wisam Hashlamoun/APA Images)



Israel announced today it would suspend entry permits for all Palestinians during the Ramadan holiday, including those residing in Gaza, after two gunmen from the West Bank killed four Israelis and injured eight more in Tel Aviv last night at a popular shopping center.

“All permits for Ramadan, especially permits for family visits from Judea and Samaria to Israel, are frozen,” said the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories hours after the shooting, using the biblical name for the occupied Palestinian territory.

In advance of the holy month of Ramadan Israel issued 83,000 permits to Palestinians living in both the West Bank and Gaza to enter Jerusalem for religious prayers. Holiday travel documents were also revoked during the last two summers in the wake of violent attacks on Israelis.

A further 204 relatives of the shooters from the West Bank village of Yatta outside of Hebron had their work permits cancelled.

The killings took place yesterday around 9:30pm when the two Palestinian men dressed in suits and ties as seen from CCTV footage of the incident, opened fire in an outdoor strip mall. One of the men is seen throwing his weapon on the ground during the attack. Police said they used make-shift sniper rifles, a common weapon across the West Bank.

The attack ended when officers fired on one of the shooters and arrested the other.

Scene of the aftermath of the Tel Aviv attack on Thursday, in the Sarona Market shopping center. (Photo: Israeli police)

Visiting the victim’s families this morning Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said, “Let the Palestinians understand – they cannot break us, anyone who lets terror to operate, will find at the end of the road the terror on his doorstep.”

After the attack Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who was in Moscow on an official visit, cut his trip short and arrived at the scene in Tel Aviv. He told reporters, “We will take the necessary steps to attack the attackers and defend those who need to be defended.”

While Netanyahu was making the statement Israeli forces entered the area surrounding Yatta in the West Bank. Overnight they raided the homes of the two shooters, identified as cousins Khaled Mohammad Makhamrah, 22, and Mohamad Ahmad Makhamrah, 21. As of this morning military units are posted at the entrance of the village preventing residents from leaving.

No Palestinian political faction has claimed responsibility for the killings.

Israeli soldiers stop Palestinians at the entrance of Yatta near the West Bank city of Hebron June 9, 2016. The Israeli army entered the village in search for clues leading to an attack the previous night in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv in which four people were killed and 16 others wounded. The two Palestinians assailants who carried out the attack came from Yatta, according to Israeli authorities. Israel said it had suspended entry permits for 83,000 Palestinians during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan following the shooting attack. Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun

On Thursday morning Tel Aviv’s mayor Ron Huldai said Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was a factor in understanding the cause of the attack.

“We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights,” reported the Guardian quoting from an interview Huldai made on Israel’s Army Radio.

“You can’t hold people in a situation of occupation and hope they’ll reach the conclusion everything is alright,” Huldai said.

On social media Hamas’ head Ismail Haniyeh praised the killings stating the shooters were “heroes.”

The left-block party the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claimed the shooting was a response to the far-right Avigdor Lieberman recent appointment as minister of defense, reported Ma’an News. The shopping center where the attack took place is located near Israel’s Ministry of Defense and military headquarters.

Lieberman was alongside Netanyahu last night during the press conference in Tel Aviv. He has not yet made a public statement on what actions he will pursue, but told reporters this morning “I don’t plan on detailing the steps we’ll be taking, but I certainly have no intentions of settling for lip service,” according to Haaretz.

There are indications he will renew punitive measures Israel used at the close of the second Intifada. Haaretz reported an official said Lieberman proposed last night to immediately demolish the family homes of the two shooters during a security cabinet meeting. Lieberman also reportedly backed a suggestion made during the round table for Israel to stop returning the remains of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks and alleged attacks on Israelis, which was done during the last Palestinian uprising. Since then, bodies have been returned through either court orders or special agreements made with the Palestinian Authority.

The killings come during a period of increased violence between Israelis and Palestinians since last October. In the past eight months Palestinians killed more than 30 Israelis in attacks and Israeli forces and civilians killed at least 190 Palestinians. Yet in recent weeks the number of incidents slowed.

Earlier this week the West Bank’s main pollster the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey, found support for confrontations with Israel had declined among Palestinians. Half of the Palestinian population agreeing this current period of violence had already ended.

About Allison Deger

Allison Deger is the Assistant Editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow her on twitter at @allissoncd.

Posted In:

39 Responses

Since we have heard (ad nauseum) that Israel does not have apartheid policies, what kind of punishment was meted out to all the squatters when Jewish terrorists from squatter land, set fire to a home belonging to a Palestinian family, which caused the baby and his family to die?
Collective punishment for all. Yay!

I heard Netanyahu’s remarks on the BBC News this morning and he was strangely inarticulate – long pauses between phrases as though he was having to pick his words very very carefully to avoid blowback.

Difficult to put my finger on it. But, given his recent phone call to the family of Elor Azarya (the medic who put a bullet in the head of an incapacitated Palestinian), he appeared to have difficulty in condemning a cold-blooded shooting.

Four innocents are murdered in cold blood, and not a ounce of consideration or sympathy from Allison. Not a picture. Not a comment from a family member.
Nothing but a clumsy lurch into ‘collective punishment’, and Ramadan, and the inconvenience of the Palestinians.

Your wish is my command, here is a statement by the father of one of the Israelis killed (who was a commando in the terrorrist IDF) :

“Last night, after the attack, the prime minister and two of his ministers arrived and yet another security cabinet issued decrees — not to return corpses, to put up barriers, to destroy houses, and to make lives harder. These solutions create suffering, hatred, despair and [lead] to more people joining the circle of terror,” he said. “What’s needed is a solution rather than saying all the time that there’s nobody to make peace with. We chose you to stop the cycle of blood, already 49 years you’ve been trying to solve things tactically and you haven’t succeeded. The time has come for a strategic solution,” the father said.”

““Our leaders through the years have said that the lands [on which settlements are built] are the basis on which a future [Palestinian] state can be built. The problem is when there is no terror, there are no discussions, and when there are talks, we say there can’t be terror attacks,” he went on.

“We can’t keep these people in a reality in which they are occupied and [expect] them to reach the conclusion that everything is all right and that they can continue living this way,””

Bill Clinton understands it. Ehud Olmert understands it. Bibi even gets it.
Fatah, under Arafat and Abbas, will not make a deal with Israel. A deal with Zionist Jews is an anathema to them, and why should they deal, when, (in their minds) the international community and BDS will do the job for them.

Shades of Miko Peled’s experience. The catalyst of his conversion to powerful activism was the death of his niece in a suicide bombing attack. The fact that his sister, mother of the child, refused to condemn the movement that inspired the attack turned his World around.
Thank goodness for such people and thank you Zaid for that timely post.

That’s a pretty petty post, Jackdaw. And I believe I’m being kind w/ that assessment. Allison is functioning as a reporter here; not some kind of ambulance chasing, sensationalizing manipulator of terror events. This article is a good one, and is not particularly slanted. I’m certain she feels horrible for the murdered victims and their families, just like the rest of us do. But she’s a reporter. Get it together man…

Politicians must comment immediately to events, so if Netanyahu returns to israel and comments, the mayor of tel aviv, belonging to a different mindset regarding “the conflict” must respond from his sector’s viewpoint.

Just watched the video of the murders. A different emotion after seeing it. I haven’t spent much time in tel aviv, so I doubt I have walked in front of this restaurant and so i am lacking the personal familiarity which is a factor in attacks in jerusalem.

|| jon s: … A horrible way for the terrorists to spoil the holidays … ||

I agree. And they should be brought to justice and held accountable for their actions.

Similarly, you Zio-supremacists – who’ve been spoiling the holidays for almost 70 years with your terrorism, oppression, colonialism, supremacism and sundry (war) crimes – should be brought to justice and held accountable for your actions.

Brewer, another ugly show of meanness was when the IDF pretending to look for missing Israeli kids went on a rampage trashing Palestinian homes preventing them from having a Ramadan meal. Apparently they knew the kids were dead earlier on, but took the opportunity to collectively punish all the Palestinians and smash their homes.

well the western media have a new timeline the 8th of June and the count down to whatever Netanyahu and his minister of defense are planning to do the Palestinians. there will be hardly no mention what happen prior to that date.

already the punishments towards the Palestinians have started,
Israel freezes 83,000 Palestinians’ entrance permits to East Jerusalem for Ramadan, more barriers, more house demolition and the refusal of sending the Palestinian dead home for burial.

the Israeli father of one of the victims and mayor of Tel Aviv understands the cycle of terror and call for change. they shame their government and western leaders alike but not one these leaders will listen.

The shopping center where the attack took place is located near Israel’s Ministry of Defense and military headquarters.

if a similar attack happen in Beirut near a Hezbollah HQ, the MSN headline would have read something like this:

It seems ONLY those who keep aiding and abetting this pariah nation cannot get it.

BBC reported that the UN calls Israel’s mean response to the shootings at a mall in Tel Aviv, maybe Collective Punishment, and so does this article in Huffiest. Isn’t collective punishment part of the zionist policies when it comes to all Palestinians? What vindictive and mean people.

I guess I stand corrected those who keep aiding and abetting this pariah nation, knows and says it, but obviously will not do anything about it. How about stoping that aid first?

U.S. Urges Israel Not to Punish Innocent Palestinians for Tel Aviv Attack

Israel’s response to Wednesday’s gun attack in Tel Aviv should be designed in a way that does not punish innocent Palestinians, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.
“We understand the Israeli government’s desire to protect its citizens … and we strongly support that right, but we would hope that any measures it takes are designed to also take into consideration the impact on Palestinian citizens that are trying to go about their daily lives,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a news briefing.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.724242

if hamas did not have 100% support in gaza they would have been thrown out.collective punishment should not be applied in a democratic country as not all support the government of the day.
on the other hand if israel annexed area c of the west bank then it would have to apply those democratic principles the usa mentions to the annexed area.

Your first paragraph is a pile of steaming dung. Even if less than half of Gaza supported Hamas the opponents would require sufficient weapons, militants and organizations to accomplish. Your second sentence is just as wrong. Collective punishment should never be applied as it’s a war crime. Not that zionists care about perpetrating war crimes and violating human rights. Going on a century of just those types of crimes.

And here is why “the right wing in Israel” is seriously dislodged from reality. From the article:

“Israel is more globalized, prosperous, and democratic than at any time in its history.”
Sorry, it is more isolated, dependent on aid, and autocratic than ever.“Politically, Netanyahu’s tenure has been Israel’s least tumultuous.”
Oh groovy. He’s only mowed the lawn in Gaza once. Is it permissible to factor in the mayhem in the M.E. wrought by his close buddies Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith (that numbskull) and co? The crimes perpetrated in Syria at Israel’s behest? This is the most tumultuous time the Middle East has seen in all it’s History.
The right has ruled too long.

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.